


Matrilineal Inheritances

by Thymesis



Series: Star Wars Rare Pairs Collection (NC-17) [24]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Intersex Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Tetragametic Chimerism, Uncle/Nephew Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:04:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 18,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15062651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thymesis/pseuds/Thymesis
Summary: Ben knew he was destined to carry the child who would carry on his family’s noble, Force-sensitive lineage.He could feel it.





	1. Chimera

**Author's Note:**

> This story’s premise draws on some recent [discussion](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/166807964) with amoretpsyche.
> 
> “Matrilineal Inheritances” is intended as an experiment of sorts: Although the basic contours of the storyline have already been decided (note the tags!), many of the details have not yet been fully fleshed out. As such, I’m keen to receive reader thoughts/feedback as the story progresses—your ideas may well be incorporated!

“—worst-case scenario, they may become cancerous. I would strongly advise you to have them surgically removed before the onset of puberty,” the med-droid was saying.

Ben Solo felt his body go hot, then cold. His heart was racing; he felt lightheaded, nauseous, dizzy. Tears were welling up in his eyes, blurring his vision, and if he blinked, he knew _they would start to fall_ …

“Well, what do you think, honey?” his mother asked. “It sounds like a good idea to me. Adolescence will be plenty bad enough without the raging hormones of _two_ people.”

“I-I…” Ben croaked, the words caught like bantha wool in his throat. Now, in spite of his best efforts, the tears were rolling down his cheeks unchecked. He sniffled. No no no, he was scared! He didn’t want to be cut open!! He covered his belly with one hand protectively.

His mother saw the hand. His distress was not going unnoticed. “Hmm. Perhaps we should take some time to talk it over with your father first, what do you say?” she said to Ben, stroking the top of his head soothingly. Then she turned back to the med-droid, all business. “Surgery is a very big step. We need to make this decision as a family. Thank you so much for the consultation. I promise we’ll be in touch.”

But it was too late—Ben had already decided that he wasn’t going to let them do it.

If they wanted his ovaries, they’d have to kill him first. They were welcome to cut them out of his corpse.

***

His father was an orphan who’d grown up fending for himself in the lightless underworld of Corellia. He had no family, no one whatsover to rely upon. His surname, “Solo,” was given to him by an Imperial Academy recruiter with a taste for on-the-job whimsy.

His mother, though, was a different story altogether. She was the only adopted daughter of Breha and Bail Organa, and she’d been raised a Crown Princess of Alderaan. The Royal House of Organa practiced matrilineal inheritance, so she would have been Queen one day if only—

Well. There was no point in dwelling on that particular tragedy. The point, such as it was, was that—in another, better, more _just_ galaxy—Ben’s father would have been the Queen’s Consort, and Ben, his mother’s firstborn, would have been a prince.

Moreover, although Leia Organa had not been _born_ an Organa, her blood lineage was arguably even more noble still. She was the daughter of Padmé Naberrie Amidala, Senator and former elected Queen of Naboo, and Anakin Skywalker, the most powerful Jedi in history. Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion and a great Jedi in his own right, was her twin brother.

Force-sensitivity ran in the family…and so did twins, as it turned out.

It was called tetragametic chimerism. Ben was not the product of the fertilization of one egg by one sperm cell; he was the product of _two_ eggs and _two_ sperm cells. Had they developed separately, they would have been fraternal twins, one girl and one boy, like his mother and his uncle. Instead, at some very early stage when they were only a handful of rapidly dividing cells, they merged and became a single…unusual…organism.

For all intents and purposes, Ben was an ordinary boy on the outside…but on the inside, he also possessed a complete set of human female reproductive organs.

The med-droid had said that it could not be certain whether or not Ben’s ovaries and uterus would ever be functionally fertile—and the risk of serious, potentially life-threatening complications later in life was considerable—but in his heart of hearts, Ben knew he was destined to carry the child who would carry on his family’s noble, Force-sensitive lineage.

He could feel it.

***

The surge of hormones attending the onset of adolescence was no laughing matter. By the time he was thirteen years old, Ben did indeed have mood swings and contradictory impulses enough for _two_ people—quite literally.

Masturbation helped a bit. His desires at this age were animal, unspecific; he did not indulge in elaborate erotic fantasies. This was purely about the crude matter of his body and its requirements. And besides, the avalanche of orgasm evened out some of the worst emotional highs and lows, so he availed himself of it at least twice each day without exception.

Initially, Ben’s masturbatory activity had been focused—quite naturally—on the most obvious appendage: his erection. So, it was easy to miss at first; although he’d understood it intellectually, he’d never _really_ been aware of its existence. Not like this. But now, late at night, his parents already sound asleep in their bed, as his scrotum pulled in high and tight against the base of his shaft, that part of him he’d mostly been ignoring was revealed. The outer edges felt as smooth and slick as the inside of his mouth, yet the flesh was thick, elastic, muscular. Curious, Ben slipped a finger inside and probed gently. At first, he didn’t feel much, but as his confidence grew he became more assertive, stretching and thrusting and enjoying the way it got wetter as it was stimulated.

By accident, he crooked his finger against the puffy anterior wall. A pleasure he couldn’t have imagined—wonderfully sweet and deep and _aching_ —raced down his limbs until his very _toes_ curled. He had to clap a hand over his mouth to muffle his screams as he was sent spiraling headlong into the most intense orgasm of his young life.

The next morning, his first menstrual blood began to flow.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Visit

Luke’s visits to Chandrila were infrequent. Most of the time, he was out there somewhere in the greater galaxy, doing whatever it was that heroes did—righting wrongs wherever he went, Ben presumed, or perhaps uncovering lost secret lore of the Jedi Order.

So. Yes. Luke Skywalker was a very busy man. But when he was able to visit, his arrival was always highly anticipated.

“Hey, kiddo! Long time, no see!” Luke swept Ben into a big bear hug and tickled Ben’s cheek with his beard until Ben dissolved into helpless peals of laughter.

“Uncle Luke! S-stop it!” Ben chortled, wriggling and squirming until he was free from Luke’s playful torment.

“Let me see you. Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t call you ‘kid’ anymore! You’re taller than I am!” Luke declared.

It was true. Ben was shooting up faster than a worshyr tree in a sunlit grove. Ben combed his fingers through his hair self-consciously, checking to make certain that it was covering his ears. His ears stuck out too much and made him look silly, he thought. He’d become very self-conscious about his appearance in general.

The gesture didn’t go unnoticed. Luke yanked Ben back into a second bear hug, and this time, instead of tickling his cheek, Luke dropped a long, loud—and very wet—smooth directly on top of Ben left ear.

“Ack! Nooooo!” Ben wailed, breathless, laughing so hard he was practically crying.

Encouraged, Luke went even further. He stuck his tongue deep into Ben’s ear and blew a raspberry.

Ben shrieked with delight.

“Ahem.” It was Ben’s mother. Her expression was serious. Luke and Ben pulled away from each other and composed themselves quickly. It was like they’d been caught doing something naughty; they shot each other conspiratorial glances. “Luke, we need to talk,” Leia said.

“Oh? What’s wrong?” Luke registered the grave tone of his sister’s voice and was instantly as serious as she. Playtime with Uncle Luke was definitively over. With a half-repressed sigh of resignation, Ben wandered off to the kitchen and poked through the cupboards in search of a snack.

“It’s about Ben,” Leia said. She probably thought she was keeping her voice low enough that nobody would overhear, but just because Ben had hair over his ears it didn’t mean his hearing wasn’t keen. “His mood swings are getting worse. He—”

Ben slammed the cupboard shut and took an entire jumbo bag of candied nuts with him to his bedroom. He also slammed the bedroom door behind him. Then he threw himself down onto his bed and jammed a big handful of nuts into his mouth. He crunched and chewed aggressively. He didn’t need to hear the rest of what Leia was telling Luke to know what was being said. 

Ben’s volatile moods had grown right along with his height—and so had his powers. He’d always been able to move things with his mind, but throwing small objects at walls when he raged was one thing. Making the walls themselves start to crack and cave in was quite another. He’d been banned from the Falcon after that one time he’d made the hull struts buckle. Man oh man had Dad panicked then!

And moreover, Ben had recently graduated to being able to move _minds_ with his mind. He could take control of the bodies of other beings, and with slightly more effort, he could know the thoughts they tried to keep hidden from others. These powers, too, increased when he raged. Not even Leia could prevent him from pulling secrets from her…and Luke had given her basic training in the ways of the Force.

Ben figured that what his parents wanted was for Luke to train _him_ as well. If they couldn’t contain him, let good ol’ Uncle Luke try! Yes, that’s precisely what they were thinking. Ben was angry; of course he was. Yet he was also surprised to realize that he resented Leia and Han less for wanting to foist him off on his uncle than he’d thought he would. He loved his uncle, after all. _Loved_ him. _Adored_ him.

Reflexively, Ben touched his left ear. It was still damp from where Luke had kissed him. Sudden heat, sweet and aching, pooled in his groin. When had the soft whorled shell of his ear become so sensitive?!

Snacking was forgotten. Nuts? What were they? Ben stuck both of his hands into his pants and began to stroke his erection with one hand and finger himself with the other. The sensations were as pleasant as always, but this time, for the first time, he imagined that Luke was lying beside him and sharing his pleasure. He imagined them nuzzling and kissing—slow, wet, lingering kisses—aroused together. Yes, Luke would be as hard as Ben himself, and they would wrap their arms around each other, and Luke would find that sweet, secret place behind Ben’s scrotum, and he would shift is hips, and touch himself to the entrance, and slide inside, and fill him, _and fill him_ , and the fit would be perfect, just _perfect_ —

Ben tensed and arched and came. His fluids drenched his undergarments.

 _Aaaahhhh, perfection_.

Nothing that felt so right could be wrong…right? Surely it would be _even better_ with his Uncle Luke really, truly inside of him. This was meant to be. It had to be!

Someday.

Ben cradled that happy thought to his breast tenderly, as if it were a suckling babe, and fell blissfully asleep.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Two Lessons

As Ben had anticipated, Luke acquiesced to his mother’s request. Ben would receive basic instruction in the ways of the Force. It was hoped that this would help to quell the worst of his rages and give him better control his powers.

Thus began Ben’s first lesson:

“Reach out, Ben,” Luke murmured. “What do you feel?”

Ben closed his eyes. He could hear Luke’s deep, even inhalations and exhalations, and he instinctively slowed his own breathing to match. He knew Luke didn’t want him to reach out with his hands. So, instead, he reached out with his mind.

“I feel the light,” Ben said. Birth, growth, fruition. “And the darkness.” Decay, death, annihilation. “Both in delicate, dynamic balance,” he continued. Life declining into death, death heralding the advent of new life, endless cycle. “I feel…” Ben paused, his lips curled upwards into a smile. Luke was kneeling directly behind him on the platform where Ben was seated in meditation, almost close enough to touch. “I feel _you_ , Uncle Luke. Bright and strong and shining. I feel your love, and the bond it has forged between us. I feel the power of our lineage. I feel our energies, our _souls_ , Uncle Luke, enmeshed, intertwined, reproduced, _reincarnated in the next generation_ —”

A sharp, ringing blow to his cheek. Ben’s eyes flew open; he was more shocked than hurt.

“Ben, that was… That was…inappropriate.” Luke looked tense, closed off. He’d actually closed himself off, Ben realized, and Ben couldn’t feel the bright connection between them anymore. It was like his presence in the Force had vanished and he’d become invisible. _That_ felt worse than a vibroknife rammed through his heart.

“But you asked me what I could feel! I felt _you_! I felt your love! I felt the shape of the future—!” Ben protested, the pitch of his voice rising, becoming childish again, discordant, shrill. He loathed the sound of himself—his youth, his weakness—but he’d only been speaking the truth. They had a shared destiny, him and Luke, and it was…it was…

“No, Ben,” Luke said softly.

“You felt it, too! I know you did!” Ben persisted. He had no choice _but_ to persist. Their connection, the electric charge of it, the erotic thrill…he was so hot and swollen, his inner muscles were contracting and releasing, contracting and releasing…and now he needed to come so badly…

“No, Ben,” Luke repeated more firmly. “I am a Jedi. It cannot be.”

Ben didn’t understand. The only thing he understood was that, right at this very moment, he wanted Luke to push him down and ravish him and light a spark that would ignite the flame of the next generation, yes, he wanted it more than _anything_ —and Luke wanted exactly the same thing. “Please, Uncle Luke,” Ben begged, tears threatening to leak from the corners of his eyes. “Please don’t turn away from me.”

Luke shook his head, turned, and walked away.

***

Thus began Ben’s second lesson:

“The Jedi of the Old Republic eschewed all familial and romantic attachments, as these were seen as interfering with both the self-sacrifice and impartiality necessary for a life of service to the greater good. Natural reproduction was expressly forbidden, and never, over their thousands of years of unbroken history, did they establish any powerful, Force-sensitive bloodlines…”

Ben knew what Luke was going to say next. “Save one,” he supplied.

Luke nodded, his expression grave. “Yes. My father—your grandfather—Anakin Skywalker, broke the rules, and he paid for that transgression with his life. He was only twenty-three years old when he died. Your mother and I—we hadn’t even been born yet.”

“B-but—”

Luke held up a hand, forestalling Ben’s protests. “I am not quite as dogmatic as the old Order. I love my family and see the value in maintaining these connections. But such love must always be temperate; it must not be allowed to metastasize into obsession or unreasoning possessiveness. The fear of loss can drive beings to act out in anger and violence, and to wield the Force as a Jedi is to hold great power. A fearful Jedi can cause tremendous suffering.”

“Then…” Ben knew where this was going, and he could not conceal his dismay.

“I already made my decision long ago,” Luke said. “I have chosen a lifetime of service _and_ the Force. This decision means that I shall never wed nor have children of my own.” Luke grasped Ben’s shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “You too will need to make the same decision. You can be like your mother—a lifetime of service and a family to love. Or…you can be like me. The choice is yours, and whichever you choose, I promise I will love you just the same.”

Ben struggled not to tremble beneath Luke’s touch. He wanted to stay with Luke, to be close to him always, and the only way to do that was to commence intensive training as Luke’s apprentice. But doing that also meant…

“Are you happy, Uncle Luke? No regrets?” Ben asked finally. “You don’t still want a spouse sometimes? Or children?”

Luke stroked the side of Ben’s face with his right hand. The durasteel fingertips were warm, and Ben could hear the whirr of tiny servomotors in the joints. When he smiled at Ben, it was far brighter, far more radiant, than Tatooine’s twin suns. He rested their foreheads together.

“No regrets at all,” Luke said.

“Okay.” Ben took a deep breath and held it. “Okay.” Then, he exhaled.

In that moment, Ben decided that, if this was what it took, yes, he would do it. He would do it! He would become a Jedi. If his womb never quickened, he could live with that. He just wanted to be near Luke, always. _That_ was the most important thing. A lifetime of temperate love would be enough. It would have to be.

Because Luke was still closed off to him, and to the Force, Ben was unable to sense the verity of Luke’s words. It never occurred to him that Luke might be lying…either to Ben or to himself. Or both. Not until later, at any rate.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Dream

Ben’s powers—and more importantly, _control_ of his powers—grew rapidly with training, and Luke seemed well-pleased by his progress. However, Luke continued to maintain an assiduous psychic distance between them. Closed off to Ben’s mental probing, he radiated only superficial cool, confidence, and all the intensity and gravity of an artisan before a malleable and unfinished lump of clay. He believed he had found a calling as a teacher and began making preparations for a proper Jedi training temple and an entire cohort of Force-sensitive students.

So, perhaps Luke was merely distracted. Or perhaps he was in deep denial about what was, to Ben’s mind, an inevitable, unbreakable bond between them. Either way, he appeared wholly unaware that Ben had discovered a secret method of opening Luke’s hermetically sealed mind and psychically bridging the distance between them…

…at the razor-fine boundary between wakefulness and dreams.

Ben’s head was cradled by a soft pillow, and he was swaddled in soft blankets, but he no longer perceived the comfort of his own bed. Instead, he sank into the sensation of a different drowsy body, of bone-tired but righteous exhaustion after a long day’s honest labor, of slow, even breaths, of slight, involuntary muscular twitches as the nighttime visions commenced:

Twin suns rose over a desert ridge, burning away the lingering chill of the darkness. Luke watched the morning spectacle as he had all of his life, imagining the world, the galaxy, the infinitely expanding universe beyond the horizon line. As a boy, he’d yearned to be a part of it, to explore, to adventure, but now, as an adult—

“Luke! Luuuuuke!” A woman’s voice called his name. _His wife._

An older, wiser Luke Skywalker was right where he belonged. “Coming!” he called over his shoulder, back towards the entrance to the farmhouse. “I’ll be right there.”

***

He’d grown fatter over the years, and if he were honest, his once chiseled jawline was more jowl these days than anything else. It didn’t bother him, though. The extra weight made him feel solid, grounded. _Reliable_. A good provider and father to his family.

Camie placed a plate of freshly-baked, fragrant sourdough flatbreads onto the table and sat down to join them. Their two boys, Owen and Anakin, descended on the bread like starving krayt dragons, tearing off large, hot, steaming chunks for themselves and scooping up thick portions of sour-sweet chutney and freshly strained blue yogurt from communal dishes with them. He, Camie, and Aunt Beru were content exchange indulgent, conspiratorial smiles and wait to take their turns at the food at leisure.

With Uncle Owen’s death five years ago, primary responsibility for the Lars moisture farm, and Aunt Beru’s faltering health, had fallen to Luke. This had forced him to grow up mighty fast and put aside the idle fantasies of callow youth. A family of his own had been the next logical step, and Camie Marstrap had put aside her own callow youth to marry him.

Camie was more beautiful now in Luke’s eyes than she’d been when they were kids. A veritable goddess made flesh. He worshipped her. Luke reached out with a sand-scoured, calloused right hand to stroke her long hair, thick and shining, caf-brown shot through with occasional silvery strands. Camie tilted her head around and kissed his hand.

The soft touch of her lips made him warm inside—and hungry for things other than just morning meal. _Later_ , the touch promised. _Yes_. He could hardly wait.

***

Two boys already, born two years apart, but Camie wanted a little girl, too. It was only fair, she said, especially now that the boys were a bit older.

Luke didn’t mind. What would their daughter look like, be like? More like him? More like Camie? Or a beautiful and unexpected combination of her mother and father? A daughter would be fantastic! No, Luke didn’t mind at all…

…and he _really_ didn’t mind with Camie mounted astride his hips and sinking down onto him, at the peak of her fertility this cycle, she said, warm and wet and welcoming.

He pushed up into her as she ground down onto him. She took her pleasure with assurance, as familiar with her own body’s needs as she was with his. He groaned, and the steadying hands on her hips squeezed reflexively as she tightened her inner muscles on his shaft. Aaahhh, yes! He loved her! And she loved him. She bent down to kiss him, her hair falling like a curtain around both their faces—

_A stinging whip-crack…of jealousy…? Anger…?_

And then the body atop his lifted up again to ride him harder, faster, more aggressively, and Luke was starting to shudder now, close, so close to spilling his seed, and the curtain of hair around their faces parted—

To reveal a stranger. A stranger with big, dark eyes, a wide, wet mouth, and the long, lithe,  _flat_ torso of a teenage boy. Heaving, heaving with pleasure, incipient ecstasy, couldn’t stop, no, oh Gods, no, _he couldn’t stop—!_ Hips canted upwards, back arching, and Luke’s fingers dug into the boy’s sides, hard enough to hurt, to bruise, and one of his hands was not flesh but metal, a prosthetic—

Luke gasped and sat bolt upright, jolted out of the dream. His nerves were tingling; he was mad with desperation. It took only three quick, twisting pulls to bring himself crashing headlong into orgasm, gritting his teeth so that he would not call out his nephew’s name.

***

Ben lay in his own bed, flat on his back, the blankets twisted around his ankles. Naked. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the blank ceiling. He’d sensed Luke’s climax, could have shared in it, even, with a few complementary strokes from his own hand.

But he did not.

Instead, he remained painfully aroused, teetering on the precipice for the long hours until dawn, refusing to fall, rich, thick fluids expressing the sheer intensity of his desire seeping out of him, and soaking his bare belly, soaking the pallet underneath his buttocks.

Masturbation was no longer enough to satisfy Ben. Release achieved in this manner was empty, he decided; it meant nothing. From now on, only _real sex_ would be sufficient. Real sex with Luke, to be specific. Because now he’d seen the truth. He’d been right all along: Luke wanted the same things Ben wanted—a family lineage, children—and yes, he wanted Ben himself. That dream-woman from Tatooine was a commoner, a Force-blind nobody. Clearly, Ben was a more worthy choice of life-mate for a great man like Luke! Luke just needed some extra time to come to terms with their shared destiny. So, Ben would wait…and meanwhile, he’d try not to explode from the pressure of holding everything he felt in.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Competition

Ben wasn’t certain whether or not Luke realized that Ben was sharing his dreams. Dreams weren’t something they ever had occasion to talk about, especially now that Luke was busy seeking Force-sensitive students to recruit as well as a suitable location for his new training temple. The galaxy was an enormous place, and there were plenty of options…both in terms of students and locations.

To be honest, Ben didn’t understand how Luke wasn’t totally overwhelmed by it all. Ben would have been, but Luke? Luke greeted each new day with a seemingly endless supply of vigor and cheer.

And in any case, even if Luke did realize what Ben was doing and had taken active measures to protect himself from it, Ben was growing stronger in the Force by the day…strong enough, certainly, to breach Luke’s defenses.

Ben had his self-imposed sexual frustration to thank for that. The dark side as a route to ultimate power? Ha ha ha! Had anyone asked—and it wasn’t like anybody did, but still—Ben would’ve encouraged them to try adolescence on for size. Or _two_ adolescences. Whatever. When the lunar cycle of his female parts weren’t asserting their prerogative and making him leak between his legs with primordial need to be filled, his penis was driving him mad, hardening seemingly of its own accord at the most awkward and inconvenient of times.

At least Luke was beyond pleased by how suddenly driven Ben was to excel in his studies. He may have even been proud…although he would sooner die than admit that out loud. But Ben was shaping up to be the ideal student, the perfect student, the sort of student whose demands to be taught were all-consuming, and whose enthusiasm pushed his teacher to be better as well.

***

Luke was dreaming again.

It was yet another insipid dream where Owen Lars had never purchased R2-D2 and C-3PO; old Ben Kenobi was just another crazy desert hermit who disappeared off the face of the planet one day sans explanation; and Luke had never left Tatooine to join the Rebellion and become a Jedi Knight. He’s stayed on and become a moisture farmer instead.

And instead of becoming a celibate Jedi Master, he’d married and had children. Children, plural. And Luke’s dream, as usual, prominently featured an enthusiastic attempt to conceive still more. That was one of the most popular recurring themes. So, even while submerged in his uncle’s pleasant dreamscape, Ben was scowling.

Ben had plenty of cause to scowl, you see, because the object of Luke’s boyhood crush and continued adulthood dreamscape fantasies, was still, and most emphatically, alive. A clandestine deep-dive through a raft of Bestine Township municipal archival documents had confirmed it—and had also confirmed to Ben what he’d already instinctively known to be true: Camie Marstrap was a total nobody, the daughter of total nobodies going back a hundred generations. She was just another pretty face, in other words, one of countless billions throughout the galaxy. She didn’t even have the Force!

Nevertheless, a part of Luke’s subconscious remained stubbornly infatuated with her and wanted to fuck her, to impregnate her. _Her._ Not his nephew. Gods, it was sooooooooo infuriating! It made Ben ache. It made Ben _crazy_. Why did it have to be a peasant like—?! Ugh, Ben hated even thinking her name. _He_ was the one Luke ought to want to fuck and impregnate! _He_ was practically royalty! Gods, he was sure that, on some level, Luke did want to fuck him!

Luke just didn’t want to admit it. Not to Ben. Not to himself either.

So, instead, Luke was dreaming of a stupid boyhood crush.

 _Oooohhhh, and Gods_. What if Luke woke up one morning and decided he’d had enough of being a Jedi?! What if he decided that farming and a wife and two-plus children was his true calling after all?! Leia might plead; Han might roll his eyes; and Lando might crack jokes—but in the end, who would stop him? Nobody! Luke would go find that Force-blind nobody and woo her. No question in Ben’s mind she’d be smitten. And then Ben would lose Luke. Definitively. Completely. Goodbye, constant companionship. So long, consolation prize of temperate love. May the Force be with you.

Luke was on top this time, and they were chest to chest, rocking together. They were going slow, trying to make it last, and they were holding hands, too. Luke was mouthing Camie’s ear tenderly, murmuring wordless sounds of endearment in counterpoint to the soft slap-slap of flesh meeting on each inward thrust.

For a moment, Ben was sorely tempted to muscle in on Luke’s dream again, to replace Camie with an idealized phantasm of himself…or perhaps to position himself behind those flexing buttocks, rising and falling, so vulnerable, and push his own eager erection inside Luke.

It would be easy to do. And Luke would be tight…and hot…and…

Ben nearly came spontaneously, untouched, at _that_ idea.

But then he had another one. Why bother trying to compete with a dream _in_ a dream? He’d never measure up to a fantasy. Why not compete in the waking world instead? Why not try the ancient art of persuasion? Why not… _seduce Luke??_

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Touch

Ben followed Luke silently into his sleeping quarters.

“What is it, Ben?” Luke asked, his expression one of mild concern. “Is something the matter?”

 _Everything_ , Ben wanted to say, _and nothing_. Construction of the temple was complete, and the inaugural class of twelve students had arrived, filling the Force all around them with their rude and optimistic energies. Both Luke and Ben had been helping them to acclimate and settle into their new surroundings and the aesthetic, contemplative lifestyle of the Jedi Order. So while, if anything, Ben was working more closely with Luke than he ever had before, it was never just the two of them anymore, and paradoxically, it felt to Ben like they had been growing progressively apart.

Moreover, the other students regarded Ben with a mixture of awe and anxiety. Although never discussed openly with or among the new arrivals, his familial connection to Luke was impossible to hide—as was his advanced status as a trainee relative to theirs—and they kept a fair distance. Ben, in turn, an only child and by nature quiet, self-conscious, and aloof in his demeanor, made no new friends among the other students. Secretly, Ben was proud; he _was_ different—superior!—and he told himself he was glad everyone recognized it. But still. Still. It was…it was _lonely_. So terribly, terribly lonely. The ache of it had become constant, incessant, nearly a physical pain in his chest.

“Master, I—” Ben cut himself off abruptly. He’d taken to calling Luke “Master” in front of the other students—he neither asked for nor received any special privileges as Luke’s nephew, and this was just one small example of his performance of humility—but that wasn’t necessary when they were in private. He started over again, and to his dismay, there were tears pricking his eyes. “To tell the truth, Uncle Luke, I-I…I _miss_ you.”

“You ‘miss’ me?” Luke chuckled lightly as he removed his cloak and tabards for the evening. He was half-turned away; he hadn’t yet noticed Ben’s self-evident distress. “But Ben, I haven’t gone anywhere in ages!”

That was true, as far as it went. But instead of explaining himself further in words, Ben merely stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Luke, mashing his nose against the pulse point in Luke’s neck, breathing his familiar scent and savoring the coarse prickle of Luke’s beard against his lips. The tears he’d been trying to hold back began to fall, wetting Luke’s skin. Ben shuddered convulsively.

“Oh, Ben…” Luke sighed as he reciprocated the embrace, pulling Ben in closer and running his palms soothingly up and down Ben’s back. So gentle and compassionate, as always. The caress was a primitive, animal comfort, and for the first time since he had decided to apprentice himself formally to Luke, Ben could sense Luke’s unique presence in the Force.

 _Yes._ Luke had opened himself up to Ben again. Ben’s heart leapt with happiness and relief. It wasn’t total openness; it was barely more than a crack. But even the finest of hairline cracks could be widened, given sufficient effort. Ben pressed himself into it as he pressed himself harder against Luke’s body, probing, twining, rooting, pulsing with all the energy of the innocent admiration and love of his boyhood for the family hero.

“I didn’t mean to neglect you. I’m sorry,” Luke said. On some level, he did understand Ben’s need—he felt it, too.

“I know,” Ben whispered.

“I’m here for you, Ben. Don’t worry. You can come to me whenever you like.” Luke stroked his hair and tucked stray lock behind one ear. Ben would never forget the time Luke had put his mouth there—

“Thank you. I will,” Ben said. Would he, indeed.

They held each other for long minutes, relishing the closeness, and then, after the embrace had ended, Ben was allowed to stay. He fell into dreamless sleep with his head cradled in Luke’s lap, and when he woke again in the morning, he realized they’d been sleeping side by side.

It had been entirely chaste, and neither of them had ever even fully undressed before climbing into bed, but never mind. They could make a habit of this, nevertheless. Yes, yes, they could.

He would have to keep his desire hidden, though, he knew…for now…lest Luke slam the walls down between them again.

***

Ben ensured that he was the last person Luke saw before bed most nights. Sometimes, they talked or debated theory. Other times, they meditated. Always, they held each other. Rarely, Luke invited him to stay.

The companionship seemed to provide Luke with some manner of peace of mind. He never dreamed of Camie and Tatooine on the nights Ben visited. It was like Ben’s presence rendered the dreams superfluous. That was mighty encouraging.

Meanwhile, during his waking hours, researching Camie Marstrap had become Ben’s secret obsession. He’d discovered her wedding notice early on; she married another Tatooine local named Laze Loneozner some fifteen standard years ago. But she and Loneozner had no children, which Ben thought…odd. So, he began tracing both her and Loneozner’s ancestral trees, and in so doing, he made a great discovery: Infertility ran in Camie’s family. Indeed, approximately one-third of her female relatives going back twelve generations never bore children, despite having been recorded as espoused!

Ben’s heart sang. A known genetic defect! Luke’s dreams, when they did occur, were always, always, _always_ about children, either raising them or attempting to conceive them. But these were just fantasies. Luke had no idea that Camie—the _real_ Camie—was likely infertile and therefore manifestly unsuitable.

It was high time, Ben decided, for Luke to learn the truth, stop wishing for the one he’d never have, and start seeing the one he could, the one who had always been right there in front of him, of good breeding, available and willing and _hungry_ —

Aaaahhhh, sweet, delicious ache! He was wet; it took tremendous willpower not to slip a hand between his legs to ease that burning tension. This was Ben’s body was telling him in no uncertain terms that it was ready to conceive.

The plan, such as it was, was simple: Ben loaded an official-looking executive summary of his research on Camie Marstrap onto a spare datapad and left it someplace he knew Luke would see it. Then, he went to Luke’s bedroom to await his arrival.

“Ben? Ben?! What is this?? What are you…?!” Luke gasped. The spare datapad hit the polished stone floor with a clatter and broke.

Ben was already tucked into Luke’s bed, and he was completely naked.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. Consummation

Luke hadn’t become enraged or expelled him from the room. That was something, at least.

Instead, he’d sat down quietly beside the bed where Ben lay and placed his natural left hand over Ben’s forehead. The casual onlooker might have easily assumed that Ben was sick and feverish and Luke was caring for him. Ben’s eyes were closed, his eyelids fluttering and twitching restlessly; Luke’s attitude appeared to be one of benign protectiveness, comfort, and reassurance. To this hypothetical casual onlooker, the scene probably would have appeared, well, _peaceful_.

The reality was anything but.

The entirety of Ben’s pent up desperation, his need, his desire—the sheer, uncontrolled power of it was battering itself against the tiny crack in Luke’s mental defenses with the force of a thousand tsunamis, transforming that crack into a giant, gaping chasm and laying the contents of Luke’s mind bare to Ben’s scrutiny.

As for what he sensed fron Luke’s mind? There was no order, none of the Jedi Order’s vaunted serenity, at least not at the moment. At the moment, it was a swirl of chaos, frantic and fractured, from which Ben could glean only jagged, broken shards of emotion:

Faith. Hope. Grief. Pride. Stubbornness. Self-restraint.

Loneliness. Yearning.

 _Love_.

Ah yes, there was love. There was so much love in Luke! Ben latched onto that love and clung gamely, like a child might try to hold onto a slippery, wriggling silverfish he’d caught swimming in a shallow creek, and drew it in close to himself, the most precious of prizes.

Ben had opened his mind to Luke as well. He’d made himself completely vulnerable; he professed to have nothing to hide; he groveled at Luke’s knees; he shared his awareness of Luke’s dreams, confessed his jealousy, admitted his obsession. He shouted his devotion. He pushed his own fondest dreams and fantasies back into Luke’s mind: wild, passionate lovemaking, yes, but also tenderness. A newborn babe cradled in the intertwined circle of their arms. The laughter of children. Children, plural. Transcendent joy. Training the next generation, the power of Anakin Skywalker’s bloodline secured, the galaxy made safe because they were there to protect it. Sharing their lives. Growing old together, never to be parted, not even in death, because there is no death, there is the Force…

“No! No. We can’t,” Luke whispered, whether thought or speech, it was impossible to distinguish. He wanted this, too—Ben knew he did! He knew the truth like the beat of his own heart! So why did Luke continue to deny himself? Did he think it would be immoral? Was he ashamed?

It wasn’t immoral, as far as Ben was concerned, and Luke shouldn’t be ashamed. Ben pushed all of his knowledge of the honorable history of his mother’s royal lineage into Luke’s mind: countless generations, marrying cousin to cousin, uncle to niece, aunt to nephew, and even, on occasion, brother to sister, in order to keep the matrilineal bloodline pure. There was strength in purity, he assured Luke; there was nobility, the will to lead. This wasn’t wrong; this was exactly right! _This consummation was their destiny…_

“We can!” Ben said as he flipped the blanket which covered him down past his knees, exposing his nakedness, his arousal. Although he’d never been considered a properly handsome boy, he had the attractiveness of his youth on his side, he knew. He arched his back, canted his hips upward in unmistakable seductive invitation.

“Ben…” The undifferentiated swirl of chaos in Luke’s mind was quickly ordering itself into an all-consuming, twisting funnel—one that was focused entirely on Ben. His mouth was open and panting. His pupils were dilated; he seemed unable to tear his gaze away from Ben’s erection and the womb which lay hidden beneath it.

“Please,” Ben pleaded. His body felt like a furnace; he was burning inside! He needed to be touched, to be filled! He seized Luke’s left hand with both of his own and guided it to his belly, directly over that pool of roiling, liquid heat. “Can’t you feel it? The time is right.”

Then, Ben guided Luke’s hand down between his legs. Oh Gods, he was so hard, his scrotum high and tight, and his opening was exposed. “Please touch me. Please,” he said. “I’m ready for you.” Luke’s fingertip brushed the tight, wet ring, slid a centimeter inside—

Abruptly, Luke snatched his hand away. Ben recoiled, expecting Luke to strike him for his audacity, but instead Luke only stared, fascinated, at his wet finger… And brought it to his lips… And tasted it… Tasted _Ben_. He was trembling. They were both trembling. “Ben, I…I-I’ve never— I don’t know _how_ —”

Oh. _Oh_.

After night after night after night of dreams of Luke’s enthusiastic lovemaking with Camie, Ben had forgotten something fundamental—that they were only _dreams_. Here in the waking world, Luke had sworn himself to strict celibacy. But when he was younger, had he not…? No! The expression on Luke’s face was unmoored, almost _confused_. Somehow, Luke had made it to middle age still a virgin, and he was far less comfortable with his own body and its responses, its innate sensibilities, its requirements, than Ben.

“I love you, Luke. Do you love me?”

Ben didn’t wait for a response. He reached up, twined his arms around Luke’s neck, pulled Luke down into the bed with him, into an ardent, openmouthed kiss, and Luke…Luke didn’t say no. He didn’t say anything at all, in fact—he was too busy reciprocating with awkward, enthusiastic kisses of his own. In this instance, Ben thought, maybe he would be the teacher instead of Luke, or maybe they would learn it together.

Luke was already hard underneath his robes. _Hard for Ben_. There would be time for slow seduction and foreplay and gentle lovemaking later, but for now— Sounds of fabric tearing, of hitched breaths and moaning. For now, their natures beckoned, and two luminous beings called out to each other across a dark, vast, fathomless distance…and found their way home.

There was no pain when Luke entered him, only an ecstasy of fullness, completion, perfection, and by the time he struck bottom, they were already being consumed by their orgasms.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Morning After

They made love twice more that night, and Ben awakened with the first rays of the sunlit dawn to Luke cleaning his body with a damp cloth.

Ben wasn’t sure what the point of that was. The tender stroking motions over his bare skin were sensuous, and Ben was already visibly aroused again. He opened his legs and thrust out his hips—an invitation as well as a deliberate provocation—but Luke seemed to willfully misunderstand Ben’s intentions and merely proceeded to wipe him clean down there as well.

“Hey!” Ben protested, squirming out of Luke’s immediate reach.

Luke halted his ministrations and regarded him with an expression mild surprise. “Aren’t you uncomfortable?”

“No, I—” Ben began, eager to rationalize…and then with a little jolt he realized that Luke, still entirely without his customary Jedi robes, hadn’t bothered to clean himself off first before starting on Ben. He could see the traces of their mingled fluids on Luke’s penis, dried and crusty. That penis, soft and quiescent at the moment, had been so big and beautiful inside of him last night. Ben rubbed the shaft with the tip of one finger. The organ twitched. Translucent flakes fluttered to the floor.

“Hey!” Now it was Luke’s turn to protest.

“Why didn’t you clean yourself off first? Aren’t you uncomfortable?” Ben asked, echoing Luke’s earlier question, his tone of voice carefully non-judgmental.

“W-well…b-because…because I-I—” Was Luke actually blushing?! Ah! _He was_. And because their minds were open to each other, he knew exactly what Luke was thinking yet couldn’t quite bring himself to say aloud: because he didn’t want to lose this, because he didn’t want it to end, because he wanted their love painted in bright, bold letters on his skin—

“I feel the same,” Ben said.

Luke blushed a deeper red. He still couldn’t say it!

So, Luke kissed Ben instead.

Luke was a fast learner. His kisses were more controlled, more skillful, than they’d been last night—and more curious. He licked gently at the corners of Ben’s mouth and suckled his lower lip. The velvet tip of his tongue stroked Ben’s tongue, and when Ben smiled and chuckled at the ticklish sensation of Luke’s beard, Luke seized the opportunity and nipped him playfully.

And he didn’t confine himself to Ben’s mouth. Ben was laid out flat on Luke’s own bed, his entire body eager and available, and Luke kissed and caressed him in every vulnerable spot: eyelids (closed, lashes fluttering), earlobes (not a trace of mockery about how much they stuck out), throat (bared, Adam’s apple bobbing with each convulsive swallow), underarms (fuzzy and fragrant), nipples (rose-hued and slightly puffy), belly (flat, heaving)…

…penis (fully erect, foreskin retracted, sweet spot on the underside of the crown, shaft pulsing, precome rising within it like mercury in a thermometer), scrotum (testicles pulled in tight and individually defined)…

… _vaginal opening_.

Pliant. Slick. Wet.

Luke’s right hand, the prosthetic one that was all wires and circuits and unyielding durasteel and sharp edges, wrapped loosely around the base of Ben’s penis, lifting it off of where it rested against his abdomen and holding the scrotum securely against the shaft. Ben felt a momentary, intoxicating frisson of fear, then, imagining delicate skin pinched and trapped between Luke’s finger joints—

Ben whimpered; he was trembling, tempted to flinch and squirm—

The thumb and forefinger of Luke’s left hand, the natural one, pressed firmly against Ben’s perineum, holding him down, holding him still with sheer force of will…and shared desire…and Ben emitted a thin, high-pitched wail as Luke placed a kiss directly onto the part of Ben that made him unique, precious, irreplaceable.

 _Yes, Luke was kissing him there!_ And not just kissing him, either; his tongue traced reverent circles around the perimeter of the opening, clockwise and then counterclockwise, delicate as a flickermoth’s wing, almost hesitant. He adored how Ben tasted, Ben knew, and he also liked tasting himself on Ben, their mingled flavors alchemical, incontrovertible proof of their union. And soon enough, Luke was growing bolder, pushing inside, probing, testing the elasticity of Ben’s inner walls, pushing deeper, deeper, _deeper_ , until his beard rasped Ben’s inner thighs and his lips were crushed, and Ben’s muscles were contracting and releasing, contracting and releasing, contracting and releasing, and when he came, just like that, just _from_ that, being impaled on Luke’s tongue and helpless against the onslaught of pleasure, limbs flailing in the air, fluid poured out of him like an undammed river.

Luke drank him down like a man lost in the desert and dying of thirst.

No, they were both lost—but they were lost _together_. That was all that mattered.  

***

It happened late in the afternoon the next day. Ben had just finished hanging the students’ training sabers in their safe-storage cupboard when he felt a tiny _snap_ , like a static shock, low in his belly, and then a syrupy warmth that spread slowly throughout his body, from the very top of his head down to his toes.

He turned his Force sense inward, and awareness bloomed. This was the beginning of a new life, and it had declared its existence to its mother in no uncertain terms.

Ben had conceived—indeed, as he had known he would.

He felt lightheaded. His heart began to race with excitement. There was a silly grin on his face, and he was practically bursting with joy. He couldn’t wait to tell Luke!

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	9. First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI: I was in the mood for a name/icon change, in case you were wondering, and thought this’d be a good choice for an account on a site with “archive” in its name. However, it occurs to me now that it also sounds a bit like a disease. Ha! So maybe I’ll change it again soon. We’ll see.

At the center of the training temple complex was an enclosed courtyard, and at the center of that enclosed courtyard was an uneti tree. According to Luke, this particular uneti had been grown from a cutting taken from a tree growing in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant before the fall of the Old Republic. According to the legends, _that_ lost tree was, in turn, grown from a seed taken from the planet from which the Jedi religion originated. As to which planet that might be? Well, no one knew for sure. Not even Luke. Certainly not Ben.

Ben _was_ certain, however, that he would find Luke seated beneath that tree, his back resting against its thick, straight trunk; he liked to go there to meditate after afternoon sparring practice.

“Master…?” he began, tentative as he entered the courtyard.

No, they were alone. There was no need to maintain the appearance of a proper Jedi apprentice’s propriety.

“ _Luke._ ”

Luke’s eyes snapped open. His gaze came to rest upon Ben, and he rose smoothly to his feet. Ben made to approach him, but his feet were heavy all of a sudden, his joy twisting itself into wariness. What would Luke think? Was he truly certain that Luke would share his happiness? Luke was a Jedi Master, after all, sworn to a lifetime of celibacy. He felt as rooted to the spot as the uneti tree. Ben’s fingers twitched nervously, and it took effort not to cover his belly protectively.

Luke, though, strode straight up to Ben, no hesitation, took his face between his two hands, and kissed him. He already knew. Ben sobbed into the kiss, a release of tension. No carefully worded explanations were necessary. He already knew! Luke kissed Ben’s tears away, and Ben realized that Luke’s eyes were bright with tears as well. _He already knew, and he accepted the truth._

Ben wrapped his arms around Luke’s waist and pulled him in closer, the proof of their union, of their bond, pulsing in the Force between them. “It’s ours, Luke, ours—!” he choked out between kisses. “W-we’re…we’re going to have—!”

They went down onto the soft loam together, Luke rolling Ben onto his back and pulling his robes open, urgent, desperate, and then they were coupling, wanton, frantic. They were overwhelmed by the strength of their emotions, unable to think of anything beyond the rocking of their bodies, the fit perfect, bringing them closer, closer, _closer_ , until they couldn’t stop, not for anything, anyone, not even if they’d had witnesses.

Which they didn’t. The baby was still a secret just between the two of them.

***

Happiness. Pure, unadulterated happiness. It lasted for one month. One glorious, gorgeous month.

Oh, how they cherished each other!

Their physical union seemed to strengthen the psychic connection between them, and the time before, back when Luke had cut himself off from Ben’s Force awareness, seemed to recede from Ben’s memory. He took great delight in learning all of the hidden corners and deep crevasses of Luke’s mind, those parts of his psyche that Luke himself had hardly known were there, and Luke did the same, throwing open the proverbial curtains in Ben’s oft-benighted, angst-ridden, angry-adolescent soul in order to let in the bright, cleansing light.

The other students—chosen by Luke himself—were, like Luke himself when left to his own devices and natural inclinations, naïve and guileless and wholly free of suspicion. If they thought anything of this new closeness, they accepted it as the natural association of uncle with nephew or perhaps of teacher and his most advanced, gifted student. That Ben remained outwardly humble and submissive, his Master’s silent shadow, probably helped to deflect suspicion away from their near-constant close association as well.

Spatial proximity had meant that Luke had been at Ben’s side to feel the precise moment the tiny embryo they’d created together implanted itself into the fleshy walls of Ben’s uterus. He’d been thoroughly enchanted by that tiny, stubborn spark of life, knitting its own tissues to Ben’s…and afterwards, they’d had to retire to Luke’s private chambers with almost unseemly haste, or otherwise he would have had Ben there, _right there_ , standing, pinned to the wall and gasping as he was breached.

Aaahhh, what would the other students have said if they’d seen their temperate Jedi Master Luke Skywalker in the throes of wild, uncontrollable passion with his twin sister’s only son?

Ben had always known he was special, of course, and he delighted in this further proof of his unique destiny: No other being in the galaxy had ever come to know Luke as completely—and as intimately—as Ben had. No other being in the galaxy had ever lay sprawled on top of Luke’s naked body. No other being in the galaxy had ever taken Luke’s erection to hand, known its exact shape, its girth, the traceries of its veins, the silkiness of its skin…

The intimacy was hypnotic, like living in a dream—and so intent was Ben on watching how Luke fell to pieces beneath him, tensing, shuddering, and finally climaxing, merely from the feather-light touch of Ben’s fingertips…so intent was Ben on feeling those warm droplets of fluid slide slowly down the inside of his wrist…so intent was Ben on devouring the pleading moans spilling from Luke’s mouth with his own hungry kisses…

…that he didn’t recognize that first sharp stab of pain in his abdomen for what it was.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	10. Again

Wetness trickled down the inside of one thigh, tickling him, and he wiped it away absentmindedly with the palm of one hand—

His palm was red with blood.

It wasn’t…no… No, it couldn’t be… But it couldn’t be menstrual blood, which meant—

“No, oh nooooo…” Ben whispered.

Whereas only moments before he’d been focused entirely outward, seeking to maximize Luke’s pleasure, now he turned his senses inward, seeking to understand his own body’s needs and processes—

The conclusion was unequivocal: His body was terminating the pregnancy. The embryo was still detectible as a tiny pinprick of light and life inside of him, but the strong, muscular contractions of the walls of his uterus were sloughing it off, cutting it off from the nutrients in its mother’s blood that it needed to survive—and so it wouldn’t, not much longer. Survive, that is.

If he wanted, he could use his strength in the Force to stop this. He could. But he knew he shouldn’t. The embryo was alive, yes, but Ben could also sense that there was something…something…not…not quite… _right_ about it. It wasn’t normal and shouldn’t, therefore, be brought to term and into the world. Not all things deserved to live under all circumstances—that’s what Ben believed, or what he thought he believed, and his body had known the truth even before he had—consciously, at least.

Yet. And yet.

Had he already known and, on some level, chosen freely to ignore it because ignoring it was…what? Easier? More pleasant? To persist in this delusion, in this fantasy…? Because he…because he wanted…because he _loved_ …

Wordless, whimpering cries were leaking from the corners of Ben’s mouth, high-pitched and gasping. The pain squeezing his heart was a hundred-thousand degrees worse than the pain of miscarriage—

“Ben?” Luke had sensed what was happening inside Ben’s body, too, and he’d come to the same conclusion. “It’s all right. It’s a natural thing…if it’s going to happen…it’s better this way…” And then he was reaching out to embrace Ben and offer solace. But he was still naked, still semi-erect, still flushed with his recent satiation, with the perfect, transcendent beauty of his pleasure—

“No! Don’t touch me!” Ben leapt to his feet, out of reach. Blood ran in thick, dark rivulets down his legs and spattered onto the floor. Dirty. Tears were streaming from his eyes, blurring his vision. He felt so terribly ashamed of this ugliness, of this imperfection of his maternal body; he wanted to hide himself away! Hastily, Ben gathered up the rumpled piles of his discarded robes against his chest, and with a burst of Force-enhanced speed, he fled.

No explanation. No apology.

The subsequent three days were spent huddled beneath heavy blankets on the sleeping pallet in Ben’s own temple room, and he’d lain there, unmoving, mildly feverish, swaddled in absorbent cloth to soak up the blood, gritting his teeth against the intermittent cramping pains, and wallowing in his anguish.

There was readily available medical treatment for the symptoms, of course, but he hadn’t wanted it, not while he could feel the embryo’s cells dying one by one by one, until its light was wholly extinguished. A drug-induced haze just hadn’t seemed…right.

Luke had been by his side the whole time, of course, wanting to be an emotional ballast, an anchor for Ben to hold on to. He offered Ben bowls of warm porridge and cups of cool water. He stroked Ben’s hair. Sometimes, he tried to engage Ben in conversation. When that didn’t work—invariably it did not—he murmured sweet nothings into Ben’s ear. When he slept, he curled his body protectively around Ben’s, chaste again, fully clothed. He stayed on top of the blankets while Ben was beneath, and they acted as another _ad hoc_ barrier between them. Ben, meanwhile, remained awake the whole time Luke was sleeping, wide-eyed but staring at nothing, stiff-backed, pretending to be stone.

This was exceptionally hard for Luke, too; Ben knew it even if he found himself incapable of properly acknowledging it or responding with sympathy, not when he couldn’t fully comprehend, unpack, or analyze his own complicated, contradictory feelings! The connection forged between them was still so strong, which meant that Luke felt everything that Ben did, just the same. He’d also wanted the child they’d made together. And he’d also felt that child they’d made together die, unborn.

Gone…gone… _gone_ …

Yet another choking sob, heavy with grief, slipped from Ben’s lips.

“Hey, kid. No, no. Don’t cry,” Luke said gently.

Ben responded to that by curling tighter into himself. Although the physical symptoms of his miscarriage had eased, the psychological ones had not, and Luke’s kindness, his compassion, for always, unconditional—it was practically condescending. Unbearable. “Leave me alone,” he muttered.

“Ben, please. _Ben_.” Maybe Luke had realized that “kid” wasn’t the right mode of address at the moment. “Look at me. Please.”

“Go away.”

“No.”

Ben responded to _that_ by curling even tighter into himself, his back to Luke, his meaning crystal clear, yet Luke refused to leave. He said nothing further for an hour or more, but he never left.

Then, finally:

“Ben, please look at me.” A pause. Luke inhaled, long and deep. “Ben, I love you.”

He’d never said _I love you_ out loud before. Not like that. Never so sweetly, so desperately, so broken-heartedly. Never like his own bitter life’s blood were pouring out of his mouth instead of words.

They fell into each other’s arms. They held each other, caressed each other. They kissed.

“We can try again,” Luke promised. “It’ll be all right, Ben, you’ll see. We can try again.”

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	11. Infinite Loop

Things were different between Luke and Ben after that.

The precise differences, such as they were, were hard to qualify—and outright impossible to quantify—but they were definitely there, and Ben was acutely aware that the present had become a distinct “after” to call contrast with the “before” of the immediate past. Most apparent was the change in Luke’s behavior: The solicitousness that Luke had demonstrated during Ben’s self-imposed convalescence never really went away. He’d always been generous and giving, but now that patented generosity of spirit was tempered by a measure of hesitance, of self-restraint. Where once Luke had wanted to roughhouse playfully with Ben, now Luke wanted to place Ben on a pedestal. He acted like Ben was fragile and an excess of unchecked enthusiasm on Luke’s part might break him.

Of course, he _had_ actually seen Ben break down emotionally. That didn’t help matters, and it was this dawning awareness of Luke’s change of attitude that sparked the change within Ben himself.

Where Luke saw in Ben something fragile that needed tenderness, Ben saw in himself something fragile that needed to grow stronger, to get better, to be made worthy. Never before had he questioned his own competence, his specialness, his unique destiny as heir to Anakin Skywalker’s bloodline. Now, though, he did. What if his body was too weak to bring forth the next great generation of heroes? What if, as a consequence, he wasn’t good enough for Luke? The very idea was unbearable! He’d rather _die_ than experience Luke’s rejection! This persistent, dark specter of inadequacy hung over Ben now at all times—and Ben was resolved to do everything he could to compensate.

More often than not, he found himself compensating during combat training practice. It was taking a while for his body to regain its natural equilibrium and cycle once more into fertility—his emotions were swinging from the brightest peaks to the blackest, most devastating lows—and Ben channeled the energy of his contradictory emotions into his lightsaber form. This increased both the speed of his movements and the power of his strikes so that, if before he was more than equal to any one of the other twelve students, now he was more than equal to all of them put together.

Such progress could not be ignored. Not even by a Master who was trying to go easy on his best student.

One afternoon, Luke instructed all twelve to attack Ben simultaneously. Ben both defended himself easily from the onslaught and managed to disarm each and every one of his opponents without injuring them.

Then, while the rest watched, awed and panting from their exertions, Luke ignited the shining emerald blade of his own lightsaber, raised it in salute…and ran full tilt at Ben.

Neither of them held back, yet somehow, Ben managed to hold his own. He survived a half dozen passes unscathed, in fact, before the tip of Luke’s blade hovered a millimeter above the hollow of Ben’s throat and he was forced to yield.

The other students clapped and cheered, but the only thing Ben had ears for was Luke and his congratulations, the words softly spoken and plain: “Well done.”

He basked in the praise like a krayt dragon beneath Tatooine’s twin suns. He knew he’d be invited to claim his reward in Luke’s private quarters, and he could hardly wait.

***

Ben’s body lay intertwined with Luke’s in the shape of an Infinite Loop.

Luke loved to taste him, and his mouth was on Ben now, prosthetic hand, delicate and careful, holding Ben’s erection steady as he suckled the weeping tip and slid his tongue around the flared edge of the crown, underneath the foreskin. And two of the thick, blunt fingers of his natural left hand were pushed up inside Ben, hooked and curling into the puffy bundle of nerves that made Ben ache and close his eyes and sigh.

But Ben hadn’t been satisfied with being the passive recipient of such attentions, and so his own lips were pressed softly against the short expanse of flesh between Luke’s scrotum and his anus, his nostrils tickled by sparse curls as he inhaled Luke’s scent, indefinable yet intoxicating. Ben was also pushing the pleasure he felt at Luke’s touch directly back into Luke’s mind, and so Luke was as desperately aroused as Ben was, teetering on the edge of orgasm, even though Ben was barely touching Luke’s penis—

With a groan that Ben could actually _feel_ , Luke suddenly let go and came. The flesh underneath Ben’s lips contracted rhythmically as his semen pumped out of him, fluttering like the wings of a flickermoth against a transparisteel window pane.

Then Ben came as well, shuddering, overwhelmed by the intensity of what he’d felt from Luke, and _his_ pleasure sliced through Luke’s mind, amplified, which was immediately returned to Ben’s, amplified even further, which—

Ah yes, an Infinite Loop, indeed.

They didn’t bother to disentangle themselves afterwards but rather remained where they lay, languid and spent. Ben dipped his tongue into the pool of semen on Luke’s abdomen, lapping at it, drinking slowly. He’d come to love the taste of Luke as much as Luke loved the taste of him, and he didn’t want to waste a drop. He wanted everything Luke had to give, in fact; he’d become so greedy like that.

“Ben…” Luke whispered his name.

Ben tilted his head up, gazing at Luke through his lashes. Luke was gazing back down at him, and his eyes blazed with blue fire.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	12. Ignite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry it’s taken so long to post a new chapter! Things for the past couple of months have been absolutely... _ugh_. Yeah, just _ugh_.

Ben felt the cleansing fire of Luke’s gaze spark against the dry tinder of his spirit and ignite into a brilliant, blue-hot conflagration. It poured into him like a river of flame, swept through him like a torrent, and it burned, consuming, obliterating the dark emotions of anger and grief which lingered inside of him.

And then, he knew, nary a shadow of doubt: His lunar cycle had begun again at last. It had been kickstarted, like Ben’s father used to do with the Falcon’s balky hyperdrive if Han Solo had been using the Force instead of spit and sellotape.

Had Luke done that?

“Did you…?”

“I…I don’t know!” Luke said, cupping Ben’s cheek and shaking his head with mingled wonder and bewilderment.

So, if Luke had indeed done it, it wasn’t intentional. But maybe Ben had actually done it himself, to himself, mind over matter, his body responding to his most strongly held desires by offering him its acquiescence and submission to the inevitable future of offspring with his beloved uncle. Or maybe it was just a coincidence of nature.

“There are no coincidences,” Luke said in response to Ben’s unspoken thoughts.

Well. Whatever the reason, Ben would become fertile very soon. He couldn’t suppress the happy smile that blossomed on his lips.

He and Luke made love three more times before falling asleep that night. Although Ben was still unlikely to conceive, they didn’t want to wait any longer. No, they _couldn’t_ wait any longer, and each time Luke came, buried so deeply into Ben, it seemed to Ben that they would never be disentangled from each other…would never be separated.

***

Ben’s powers were growing by leaps and bounds…and better yet, he was learning _control_. Control over himself, control over the Force. At times, they seemed to be one and the same thing. All of the hard work his was putting into his training each and every day was starting to pay out dividends.

He knew for certain that he’d reached a remarkable turning point, however, when Luke took him—and only him—on an expedition to the moon of Jedha. Once a regarded as sacred, a place of pilgrimage for those throughout the known Galaxy who worshiped and revered the Force, it had been devastated by the Empire shortly before the Battle of Yavin. NiJedha, the Holy City, had been utterly obliterated.

Ben had read all of the histories as a boy, and about Jedha’s many ancient temples and esoteric religious sects, so he knew the real reason why the moon had rose to historic prominence: kyber crystals.

Nowadays, Jedha was regarded as unlucky, cursed, and few inhabitants remained. The kyber crystals were still there to be found, though.

“Listen with the ears of the Force, Ben,” Luke said. “The kyber crystals make their own music, and there will be one—somewhere—that sings just for you. Find it.”

Luke made this task sound so much easier than it actually was, of course. The Death Star’s weapon of mass destruction had obliterated so much life, and with so much remorseless violence, that many of Jedha’s unmined kyber crystals had become irretrievably corrupted, twisted, made to bleed. These did not sing. Instead, they _shrieked_ endlessly with the agony and rage of the wrongfully dead. Their cries were practically deafening; an untrained Force-sensitive might be driven mad.

But Ben was not untrained, and he was singularly focused on his task. Yes, Luke was right: Uncorrupted kyber crystals remained. It took three days and nights of trekking through cold, dry terrain, but eventually he found it, embedded in a hunk of orange sandstone: his kyber crystal, _his very own kyber crystal!_

The sharp edges of the raw crystal dug into the flesh of his palm as he gripped it tightly in his hand. The song of life it sang warmed Ben’s heart almost as much as Luke’s approval.

***

Luke then supervised the construction of Ben’s first lightsaber. This was an important milestone in any Jedi’s training, and the attempt took him nearly a week of uninterrupted study, labor, and meditation. But because Ben worked slowly, methodically, patiently, a personal triumph of spirit over base nature, he was ultimately successful.

When the blade of his new lightsaber was ignited, it blazed with azure radiance. The strength and purity of the color made Ben think of Luke’s beautiful eyes.

Somehow, that only seemed right.

***

Shortly thereafter, Ben conceived again.

He didn’t tell Luke he was pregnant this time because he didn’t have to. Luke just _knew_ , at the exact same moment Ben did, and summoned Ben to his personal quarters immediately.

“I don’t think we should simply leave this to fate. Too many things can go wrong,” Luke said bluntly, without preamble. “So I want you receiving expert care.”

“But, _no_ —!” Ben began, protesting, his voice shrill, breathless. His pulse quickened, and he was becoming lightheaded, dizzy; the air was being squeezed from his lungs. The New Republic’s medical establishment was highly integrated. In spite of patient confidentiality protocols, there was no practical way they’d be able to keep his pregnancy secret for long, not given who he was, not given who _Luke_ was, and then they’d have to justify, _to explain_ …

“I’m going to purchase a specialist midwife droid that will be confined here to my quarters at the training temple.” Luke reached out to stroke the top of Ben’s head soothingly, to calm him. “You don’t have to tell your mother until you’re ready, okay?”

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	13. Kaytee

Luke positively _adored_ droids. He treated them like they were in all respects equal to sentient lifeforms. As a matter of fact, he still kept that blasted blue and white R2 unit around, for godssakes, even though it really ought to have been consigned either to the scrap heap or the Museum of Obsolete Technology decades ago.

Ben, conversely, believed only in enduring the unavoidable presence of droids on sufferance…and only when they were being put to good use doing jobs living beings couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Drudgery. Dangerous work. Keeping Senator Organa up-to-date on arcane New Republic Senate protocol. That sort of thing. Luke’s point of view had always driven Ben positively bonkers, and now Luke was angling to up the annoyance ante all that much further.

“Ben, this is Kaytee,” Luke told Ben, ushering him towards the droid like he were a recalcitrant youngling. “She’s been looking forward to meeting you.”

“Umm, okay. Hi, Kaytee.”

Ben also loathed the standard practice of assigning gendered pronouns to droids. They were _machines_ , dammit; they didn’t have a biological sex! Ben, who did after all possess complete and functioning sets of both male and female human genitalia, considered himself an expert on biological sex and how it related to gender identification. As far as Ben was concerned, droid gender was just a polite fiction promulgated for the benefit of cramped, unimaginative minds—a lie, in other words—and in this particular case, Ben noted sourly, the lie was putting in some serious, hardworking overtime.

The new midwife droid, model designation KT-NP08, was a meter tall and ovoid, all soft edges and shiny, sterile-white plastisteel. It looked like some Corellian corporate shill’s idea of a droid crossed with some mysterious feminine hygiene product whose function the shill, being male, did not understand.

Well. Strictly speaking, it _was_ a mysterious feminine hygiene product, one stuffed full of advanced diagnostic medical tech. Ben’s jaw clenched; the droid’s photoreceptor had locked onto his belly, and the telltale whirring of servomotors and microprocessing beeps meant that it was scanning him already.

_Ping!_

“You are five and a half weeks pregnant, Master Ben,” Kaytee burbled cheerfully, scan complete. Turned out that the droid’s vocoder was programmed to sound feminine too, surprise, surprise, _and_ to speak with the most obnoxiously posh Core Worlds-accented Basic. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks,” Ben muttered, icier than Hoth in winter.

“The embryo is healthy and viable.”

“Oh, thank goodness. That’s excellent news!” Luke interjected. “It’s going to be great having Kaytee around to take care of everything, isn’t it, Ben?”

Ben nodded stiffly. What was so great about this droid, again? Honestly, he was starting to feel hurt by Luke’s unabashed enthusiasm for this stupid machine. But Luke didn’t want to worry about Ben’s care himself, Ben supposed, so he was pawning Ben off on this faux-female droid. Whatever happened to the incomparable value of the human touch? Maybe Luke would rather be back in the classroom or the training yard with the other students, instead of his tiresomely pregnant nephew…

“Master Luke tells me that you’ve already suffered one miscarriage. My sincerest condolences, Master Ben. I know how difficult and upsetting losing a pregnancy can be,” Kaytee continued, undeterred by Ben’s inner turmoil, gliding forward. Ben shot Luke a poisonous glance at that, but Luke didn’t—or perhaps pretended not to—notice. “But do not be discouraged, Master Ben. I am locally licensed to practice midwifery by over five-thousand, seven-hundred New Republic systems, and I will be at your exclusive disposal during pregnancy and childbirth. I’m here for you! Now, first, I thought we might discuss the specifics of your daily nutritional regimen. If there are any deficiencies…”

 _Ugh, three tasteless nutripacks per diem and mountains of vitamin supplements, here I come!_ Ben thought. Kaytee’s relentless cheerfulness was going to give Ben morning sickness.

“Well, go on. Like she said, she’s here for you,” Luke said. His expression was radiant, pleased; he smiled at Ben encouragingly and caressed his cheek. “She’s here for both of you. You and our child.”

 _Our child_. They were just words. Two little words. Yet at the sound of them Ben’s chest swelled. Where moments ago he’d been descending into a gloomy funk, now he was soaring above the stratosphere, uplifted by sheer, untrammeled joy. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes.

“Our child…” Ben whispered.

This child was conceived in passion, and it was incontrovertible proof of their bond. Yes, this was theirs, theirs together, and by retaining this droid Luke had proven that he wanted the child, and the child’s mother, to be healthy because he wanted their child to come into the world—Ben could feel that Luke wanted that more than he’d ever wanted anything. He’d been stupid, _stupid_ , assuming Luke didn’t care. Luke just…he just…he had a strange, “Droids are awesome, aren’t they?” way of showing it. So, yes, okay, okay, fine. If it was for Luke, there was nothing Ben wouldn’t do. He’d suffer the artificial sincerity of a hundred midwife droids if it was for Luke.

“Okay, Kaytee, tell me what I should be eating,” Ben said.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	14. Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the reader who was asking the relevant questions. You know who you are. ;-)

Ben’s childhood on Chandrila had been quite circumscribed, but it was fancy-free in comparison to his life nowadays. Kaytee, as it turned out, was a total control freak.

In retrospect, those first five weeks of pregnancy Before-Kaytee (or B4KT, as Ben liked to put it) had been a veritable paradise. It had just been him and Luke, hopelessly in love with each other. And although Luke had not said so aloud—and if Ben had asked, Luke would have made any number of poor excuses—Luke still secretly harbored the superstitions of his Outer Rim farmboy upbringing. Ben’s had miscarried in his first month of pregnancy, so Luke had waited until the beginning of the second month of Ben’s second pregnancy to inflict Kaytee upon him. To have made such a large monetary investment immediately, and to compel Ben to make such drastic lifestyle changes too quickly…? Well, Luke hadn’t wanted to tempt fate.

This irrationality, and coming from a Jedi Master too. It really was telling, Ben reflected. Even his beloved Luke could be profoundly flawed with regards to certain things…especially as those things pertained to Ben.

Which was cold comfort whenever Kaytee was busy driving Ben to stark raving madness.

“—because these supplements are to be taken every _four_ hours, Master Ben, not every five hours, and they cannot be taken together because otherwise the effectiveness of their healthful benefits to you and your unborn child will be reduced,” Kaytee was saying.

“Oh. Sorry. I could’ve sworn you said every five hours,” Ben muttered, distracted by the view out the window. The other students were out in the training yard, he could see, dueling with practice sabers. While _he_ was stuck in here getting lectured by a droid about his pill regimen. He was going to fall out of peak martial form at this rate if he wasn’t able to—

“—Master Ben, are you listening?” Kaytee’s bland, politely feminine vocoder tones interrupted Ben’s stormy ruminations. “ _Those_ ”—she indicated the cache of purple capsules—“are to be taken every five hours. _These_ ”—this time, she indicated a cache of blue tablets and another of chalky red chew cubes—“are to be taken every four hours. However, they cannot be taken together because—”

“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time,” Ben interrupted impatiently. The students were already wrapping up. Godsdammit! It seemed he’d missed lightsaber training altogether. This was happening all too often now that he’d become Kaytee’s to command.

“Very good. Next, I thought we ought to discuss the timetable for diagnostic tests and procedures to be conducted over the next four weeks—”

Ben’s temper was seconds from snapping. “ _Look Kaytee_ —”

“Hey there! Is everything okay, Kaytee?”

It was Luke, just arrived from the training yard, face flushed handsomely pink from his recent physical exertions.

“Oh yes, Master Luke, both mother and child are in good health,” Kaytee replied smoothly.

Ben shot the droid a venomous warning glance when Luke wasn’t looking, so she was thankfully silent on the subject of Ben’s supplement intake scheduling difficulties.

“Do we know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?” Luke asked. He wiped his moist brow with the sleeve of his robe absentmindedly. Ben could smell his sweat, clean and strong, and it made him ache with _want_.

“No, it is still too early to be certain,” Kaytee replied. “However, I am planning a noninvasive chromosomal testing along with a range of other normal procedures. Master Ben and I were just about to discuss the timetable for this when you arrived, Master Luke.”

The planning went a lot faster, not to mention a lot less stressfully, with Luke there at Ben’s side, and before Ben knew it, Kaytee had retired to power down and recharge, leaving him and Luke blessedly alone.

Ben fell into Luke’s open, welcoming arms, and they made love with Ben pinned between Luke and the wall, feet lifted clear off the floor and impaled, full to bursting, his entire body weight centered on their joining, Luke thrusting wildly up into him, so hard that his teeth rattled, so fast that their orgasms were consuming them hardly more than a minute after they’d started.

“Do you have any ideas for names for the baby yet?” Luke asked as they lay in repose together after the worst of their need had eased.

Ben blinked. He was surprised. The question was unexpected. His mind flew near-instantaneously back to Luke’s dreams of family with Camie on Tatooine. They’d had two sons: Owen and Anakin.

“Anakin,” Ben said decisively, “after your father and my grandfather.”

Luke looked surprised and touched. But he nodded slowly. “It’s a good name…although it would seem to set some high expectations for our little boy.”

“Expectations he’d be destined to meet, if not exceed,” Ben replied with assurance. It would be their son, after all, his and Luke’s. Such expectations were not unreasonable.

“And if it’s a girl?”

Hmm, that was more difficult. Luke’s mother was Padmé Amidala, Senator of the Old Republic and former popularly-elected Queen of Naboo. Ben’s mother, on the other hand, preferred to disavow her blood parents in favor of her adoptive ones, Bail and Breha Organa of Alderaan. Breha had been her homeworld’s reigning monarch by way of an ancient matrilineal line. There was, suffice it to say, more than one queen in the proximal branches of Ben and Luke’s family tree.

“Maybe Padmé or Breha…?” Ben suggested.

Luke’s expression was warm. He stroked Ben’s cheek with the pad of the thumb of his left hand and leaned in to nuzzle Ben’s ear with nose and lips and tongue, making Ben shiver with renewed arousal. “Both excellent, uhh, _regal_ choices. But you know, Ben, I was thinking that if it’s a girl we should name her ‘Leia.’ ”

“After my mother.” Ben’s voice was flat as he jerked his head away from Luke’s.

“And my sister,” Luke reminded him. He bumped their hips together, playful, and their erections touched. Just being near Ben made Luke wet at the tip. To reveal that was an apology of sorts, to ease Ben’s temper.

And anyways. Of course. It made sense. But if they wished to name the child “Leia,” surely the child’s namesake ought to be informed! The problem was that—by unspoken agreement—they hadn’t told Leia… _anything_. Not yet. And truth be told, they weren’t concerned about what Leia would think, or about popular public opinion. The human High Houses like the Organas married within families more often than not—what they were doing was nothing beyond the pale.

But. _But_. If they told Ben’s mother, that would also mean telling Ben’s father…

…and if there was one thing they both knew for certain, _it was that_ _Han Solo would not be pleased_.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	15. Visit

Luke was comming with Ben’s mother. Her holoimage’s hair was unbraided, falling in loose, silky waves over her shoulders. From this, Ben knew that she must off work and relaxing in relative privacy (as much as that was ever possible for a public figure of her stature).

“He’s doing so well, Leia,” Luke said, his voice full of warmth and pride. “He’s the best duelist of any of my students by far, and he’s already built his own lightsaber. Ah, you should see it! The construction is as fine as any I’ve seen salvaged from the days of the Old Republic. I’m sure he’s destined to bring great honor and renown to the Jedi.”

Luke’s fulsome praise warmed Ben’s heart as he slipped quietly through the door and into the room. Luke sensed his presence immediately, of course—Ben could not hide from himself from Luke, not even if he wanted to—but he remained safely out of range of the holorecording lens, and Luke did not acknowledge his presence to Leia.

“Have there been any further…outbursts?” she asked, unaware that Ben could hear. “Outbursts” was Leia’s diplomatic spin on words to denote Ben’s destructive, Force-enhanced temper tantrums. Ben hated how much the consummate politician his mother sounded, even when talking with her twin brother about her own son.

Although Luke did not proscribe communication with family and friends, Ben had basically chosen to cut himself off from his life before becoming Luke’s student. He didn’t want to be seen in front of the other students as hanging from the esteemed Senator Organa’s apron straps like a clingy child, for one thing, and as for his father, well, that relationship was _complicated_.

Ben’s “outbursts” had had quite a lot to do with complicating it.

“Nothing whatsoever for months and months,” Luke said truthfully. “You mustn’t worry, Leia; he’s learning to control it. And he’s very young, still; he has lots more growing yet to do. Eventually, he will grow out of them entirely.”

“Are you sure? I’ve been feeling strangely apprehensive about Ben of late.”

“Really, Leia, Ben’s doing fine. I promise.”

Leia said nothing in reply, but the twins’ silence was companionable, not uncomfortable. Leia would not be able to sense any deception from Luke as long as nothing he said was untrue…which nothing was. Lies of omission were a subtle art, one in which Luke had become arguably even more skilled than his sister.

“Well, anyway,” Leia said, her tone shifting, becoming business-like, and if she had any lingering doubts she was concealing them, “the reason I commed—Han will be passing through your sector in a couple of days, so you should expect a visit.”

“That’s a surprise,” Luke said.

Ben knew without anyone having to tell him that his father had not—and would not—bother to comm ahead. Dropping in on his son and his old friend completely unexpected was Han Solo’s personal style. Ben’s mother, for reasons which were perhaps known only to her, was giving them fair advance warning.

“There’s, uhh, one other thing I should probably mention. Luke, he’s lost the Falcon again.”

***

The shuttle parked on the outskirts of the temple grounds was boxy, undistinguished, and wholly unfamiliar. As for its pilot, though…well, Ben was convinced that his father would sooner die than change the kind of man he was.

“—lost her on a bet. You know how it goes,” Han was saying, projecting an air of cavalier unconcern and professional bravado that didn’t fool Ben for a millisecond. “But don’t worry, kiddo. She’ll be back safe and sound the next time you see me, and that’s a promise!”

Ben wasn’t worried about what happened to his father’s precious Millennium Falcon. He’d never cared much for that stupid rustbucket of a Corellian freighter anyway, to be honest, and he’d always secretly resented how much energy and coddling Han had to put into maintaining its balky systems. Above all, though, he resented the Falcon for how often it seemed to fly Han far away from the family home…and away from Ben.

Perhaps that…“outburst”…Ben had had once on the Falcon had been the part of Ben that wished the godsdamned ship would go away for good.

In any event, it really did figure that the very first occasion Han found to visit his son here, it _wouldn’t_ be in the Falcon.

“How’s Uncle Chewie doing?” Ben asked, deliberately changing the subject.

“Keeping busy on Kashyyyk, mediating infighting between seven different clans. He says he’s about ready to get back into the smuggling business just to get away from all of them and do something productive with his life, but I know he’s never been happier. He’s been asking about you too, you know. Wants to know if you’ve kept up your flying.”

Ah-ha! So _that_ must’ve been why Han had decided to visit Ben: Chewbacca had put him up to it. Like most Wookiees, Chewbacca doted on younglings in general, and he’d spent a lot of time with the young Ben in particular. He’d even been the one to teach Ben how to pilot the Falcon. That had been during a year Leia and Han had been nothing but busy.

Ben shrugged. He was an excellent pilot, second only to Luke himself, but flying did not define him, and it had never been something he _loved_. Not like Han did. “It’s a part of the required curriculum here, so we’ve all had practice using the Force to enhance our perception and reflexes. But the emphasis is on navigation and defense, not combat, because Master Luke doesn’t think—”

“ ‘Master’ Luke?” Han interrupted. “Good grief. There’ll be churches elevating him to godhood next.”

“There already are, actually, have been for years, but I don’t condone the practice.”

Ben tensed. Luke had arrived. Would he say anything to Ben’s father about…?

Luke and Han embraced warmly.

“I could use a drink,” Han announced. “You got anything palatable in this backwater of yours, Your Masterfulness?”

Luke grinned at Han’s affectionate show of disrespect, guileless and bright, and an ever-jealous Ben caught a glimpse of the carefree boy he must’ve once been around Han. “I think I ought to be able to arrange something. Why don’t we find someplace more comfortable to catch up?”

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	16. Fine

He’d gotten through it, just about. There were a few times he thought his very bones would crack under the strain—either that, or the walls and ceiling would!—but _somehow_ he’d gotten through his father’s visit to the training temple without any overt embarrassing incident.

Apart from an impromptu tour of the grounds and a fawning meet-and-greet with the famous “Rebellion leader Han Solo” for the benefit of the rest of the student trainees, most of the visit involved hours upon hours of Luke and Han reminiscing fondly about their many past glories and exploits together. As usual, Han’s stories had grown with each telling; to hear it now, he and Luke had vanquished a rancor in the bowels of Jabba’s Palace on Tatooine with their ankles bound and both hands tied behind their backs. If Ben hadn’t been…concerned about what Luke might reveal in an unguarded moment, he would’ve retired to his own quarters for the evening in disgust.

Instead, he stayed and watched and listened _and stewed_. Ben had been raised on these stories; he knew how much shared history, how much trial and tribulation and triumph, how much joy, Luke and his parents had shared over the years prior to Ben’s birth. _He knew!_ But it was another thing to be reminded, to his face, by his boisterous, often-absent father, of all beings, that there were parts of Luke which would always and forever be inaccessible to Ben personally, would always be a part of the undiscovered country that was Luke Skywalker. Luke was his, his, _his_ , his Uncle and Master and life-mate and father of Ben’s unborn child, and Ben didn’t want to have to share! Not with anybody—and _certainly_ not with Han.

Fortunately, though, Luke hadn’t breathed a word about any of “it” to Han. Han’s intermittent inquiries as to his son’s progress and well-being were answered with the same sort of reassuring half-truths Luke had fed Leia. He was placing his trust in Ben’s judgment, it seemed, letting Ben decide when, where, what, and how much to tell his parents. Ben was relieved but exhausted by it all, like he’d dodged or deflected a thousand blaster bolts in a row.

Now, at last, Han was preparing to depart off-planet, and father and son had a few short moments alone while Han ran through his shuttle’s pre-flight checks. Weirdly, or maybe, Ben reflected, not so weirdly, it was not his son but rather his old friend who loomed largest in Han’s thoughts.

“Do you think His Masterfulness is okay with things? Happy?” Han asked distractedly as he checked the hyperdrive fuel gauges. “Leia, uhh, I mean your mother and I always thought he’d find a nice girl and settle down someday. You know. Big families are what farmboys like Luke are usually into—lots of little, snot-nosed brats to help with the chores…”

Ben just shrugged, silent and noncommittal.

Han seemed not to notice and continued, “This Jedi non-attachment celibacy stuff, it just…it just seems a smidge over the top to me. Always did. I mean, I kinda get it—putting the greater good of the galaxy before selfish interests and family and whatnot. But it’s kinda drastic, doncha think?” Han turned from the shuttle’s control panel to face Ben head on. He rubbed a hand through his hair, a gesture telegraphing both unexpected tiredness and irritation. “Look, Ben. I guess what I’m asking is, are you really okay with it? Becoming a Jedi is a big decision. I’d thought that…well, I guess I thought Luke’d give you some basic training to control your powers. But going all the way? You’re giving up a lot, and you’re still very young. Your mother and your uncle, they’re not putting any pressure on you to do this, are they?”

Aaahhh, so that was it! Once again, Han and Leia weren’t in agreement about how to raise their son. If they’d argued any time in the recent past, there’d still be plenty of heat and recrimination. Suddenly, Han’s uncharacteristic visit made perfect sense. He was here to see whether or not he might score a point against Leia. If Ben was having doubts, Han would win. This was about his parents’ rocky marital relationship, first and foremost, not Ben himself.

Well then. The last thing Ben was going to do was give Han Solo the satisfaction of being more right than Leia Organa. “I’m fine, Dad,” he said, injecting just the right amounts of exasperation and boredom into his tone of voice. “I’m where I want to be, and I’m doing what I want to do. You don’t have to worry. In fact, I’m about to be late for a previously scheduled appointment”—with Kaytee, for a battery of week-ten diagnostic procedures, Ben didn’t say, resisting the temptation to touch his belly protectively—“so I really ought to get going. You don’t need me here, do you?”

“Oh, umm, nah. I’m all good, and she’s as ship-shape and space-worthy as she’ll ever be!” Han slapped the shuttle’s primary control panel. “You go do whatever it is you need to do!” He radiated carefree confidence. Really, everything that needed to be said about their father-son relationship had just been uttered in those innocuous, inane lines.

Ben didn’t bother giving Han a hug goodbye.

***

He knew it even before the words began to unspool from Kaytee’s vocoder: “I sincerely regret to inform you, Master Ben, that I cannot detect any heartbeat—”

The galaxy seemed to fall away from under Ben’s feet, and a blood-red haze descended over Ben’s vision. He remembered nothing further.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	17. Disposal

Luke picked up a battered plastisteel panel belonging to what used to be Kaytee’s head and examined it closely. The droid was in thousands of pieces and obviously beyond any hope of repair. He dropped the panel back onto the floor. His expression was vacant. Shocked, perhaps. Well. At least he was still too shocked to grieve for that stupid machine.

Ben could sense the turmoil in Luke, though. There was so much turmoil. A veritable swirl of chaos within Luke that meant he didn’t know what to feel, what he was _supposed_ to feel.

When Ben did finally return to himself after receiving the terrible news of his second miscarriage, he was lying prone on the low examination table that Luke had had installed in his private quarters, and the wreckage that had once been a top-of-the-line midwife droid was strewn about all around him, as if Kaytee had taken a direct hit from a thermal detonator. He couldn’t remember what he’d done, but the evidence in front of his eyes had been obvious enough. His lashes had already been sticky and clotted with half-dried tears. He’d rolled over onto his side and curled up into a fetal position—fetal position, oh Gods, why, why, why?!—and cried some more.

This had been how Luke had found him.

Ben had remained in that fetal position, weeping silently, his body shuddering with sobs, unable to bring himself to turn to face Luke even as he’d entered. He hadn’t expected Luke to be angry with him, not really, since anger was not the Jedi way, and Luke was nothing if not a great Jedi Master. He’d expected Luke to be disappointed with him, though, and Luke’s disappointment was a thousand light years’ worse than Luke’s anger.

Luke wasn’t angry with Ben, of course. However, to Ben’s surprise, he wasn’t disappointed with Ben, either. There was dawning sadness over the demise of Kaytee—that was uppermost—and there _was_ disappointment amid that chaotic swirl of emotions within Luke…but the disappointment was directed entirely at himself.

“Ben, please look at me,” Luke said to Ben’s back.

They’d been like this once before, Ben realized, and it’d been the first time Luke had actually said, “I love you” aloud. Reluctantly, Ben rolled over to face Luke. He didn’t speak. He was waiting for whatever it was Luke would do or say next.

Luke ran his gloved prosthetic hand over his face. He seemed bone-weary, and for a moment he actually looked _old_. “I’m sorry, Ben. This was my fault.” Luke paused. His emotions were bubbling up uncontrollably, and although he hastened to bury them back down deep inside, Ben hadn’t missed their meaning: Luke was blaming himself. Sure enough. “I’m a Jedi—I can touch the energies which bind all life in the universe together. And yet, when it comes right down to it, I put a droid in charge of your pre-natal care. That was wrong of me. This was to be _our_ child, yours and mine, and I should’ve taken more direct responsibility for that. I should’ve been helping you to bringing our child into this world.”

The implication of Luke’s words sank in gradually. They didn’t touch, not physically. Tentatively, tenderly, Luke’s power reached out to touch Ben’s own life energies.

Ben trembled. The touch was both intense and intimate, and his body responded to the sudden, overwhelming sense of the nearness of the person he loved most in the galaxy with arousal. He moaned lowly in the back of his throat as he began to soften and swell.

But Ben’s arousal was not Luke’s intent, and he ignored it. Instead, he concentrated on the tiny death within Ben, like a spreading black stain, and he twined his own energies around Ben’s, and through them, buttressing, strengthening, _encouraging_. He wanted Ben body to purge the death, to purify itself, and thereby hasten its eventual renewal.

“There will be time to heal, and then, we can begin again,” Luke said.

Ben sighed. He knew what “time to heal” would mean. The abdominal pain and the blood. They would be coming. Soon. Very soon. _We are not this crude matter_ , he told himself.

“C’mon, kiddo, help me clean this up,” Luke said. He was referring to what was left of Kaytee, and his tone of voice was falsely bright. “There may be some parts which can be salvaged.”

 _Okay, it meant_ that _too_.

Well, at least Luke hadn’t given up on the notion of family, of the future, of heirs to their bloodline, of their shared destiny. No, he still wanted every bit of it as desperately as Ben did; if anything, he was even more firmly decided than ever. That certainty was reassuring. Ben had no doubt that he was beloved.

With a groan and a big stretch to shake out the stiffness in his limbs, Ben rose from the examination table and began to assist Luke in the thankless labor of disposal.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	18. Conductor

The Force was everywhere and with everything. Ben was everywhere because the Force was everywhere, and he was here in this place—right here, right now—with the Force, with Luke, giving himself to the Force, giving himself to Luke, giving Luke his everything.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against Luke’s shoulder. Luke’s arms were wrapped around Ben’s waist, and his chest was warm and firm against the sweat-damp flesh of Ben’s back, the chest hair tangled and soft, the nipples hardened to two tiny points. Luke licked and nipped at Ben’s earlobe and nuzzled behind Ben’s ear as he eased both of their bodies backwards, until Luke was lying flat and Ben was splayed out on top of him.

Ben whimpered, desire and desperation mingled, fingers curling helplessly into the grass and the moist, rain-soaked soil within which it was rooted, as searing pleasure raced along his nerve-endings, white-hot, setting him alight. He was teetering on the precipice of orgasm, so over-sensitized that he couldn’t bear to touch himself, and his inner muscles were clenched vise-tight, yet Luke was moving so slowly inside Ben that he seemed not to be moving at all. And Ben, for his part, had so little leverage in this position, no real way to brace himself, to push or thrust or grind into the delicious impalement. He had, in short, no recourse but to yield and surrender to the twin sensations of Luke’s thick erection opening his body, of Luke’s Force-enhanced strength opening his mind.

They’d been joined like this for so long, been making love nonstop all afternoon beneath a broadleaf tree in a sun-warmed, secluded corner of the Temple gardens, that at this particular moment Ben couldn’t for the life of him recall when or how they’d started. Each and every movement was in perfect synchronicity. He felt everything Luke felt, and Luke felt everything he felt, and they’d shared orgasm after orgasm after orgasm, weeping from the beauty of what they’d given with each other. They weren’t reaching for completion anymore, weren’t striving or straining for it. This was like floating, cast adrift, submerged in an ocean of sensation. There was only the sweet stretch and slide of Luke within Ben, in and out, in and out, in and out, until the pleasure was too much to contain, and it sloshed and spilled over.

And yes, yes, _yes_ , at last, at long, long last, it was spilling over again— Ben shrieked, spine arching and limbs flailing, as he was thrown into a freefall of ecstatic bliss, and Luke followed less than a half-second later, right on the apex of one of those painstakingly slow, inward thrusts, faced pressed against Ben’s neck, lips a wet smear, not a sound, not a word, as the exquisite, pulsing contractions of his ejaculation seized him. Seized _them_.

“Yessss…!” Ben hissed. He could feel the swelling, the throbbing, the upwellings of semen, rich and profuse, against his cervix. Adding to what was already in there inside of him. Ah, yes, he felt so full, full to bursting, and blessed by the potency of Luke’s love. “Oooohhhh, oh, Luke—!”

“Ben.” His name, whispered in his ear like a tiny puff a breeze, a single syllable laden with passion and devotion and aching, aching _want_. “Ben…”

Still, Luke didn’t stop; even after all that, _they_ didn’t stop. They didn’t _want_ to stop; their pace never faltered. Ben was fertile again, at the fertile peak of his cycle, in fact, and insatiable, and Luke wished to be certain, absolutely, positively certain, that Ben would successfully conceive.

They could keep on doing this for days straight, if necessary, without nourishment or respite. The Force was that strong in them.

***

They’d never been this close before. Never. Not ever.

If before Ben had been Uncle Luke’s one and only nephew, Master Luke’s one and only student, if before Ben had inhabited Luke’s dreams, had felt what Luke felt when making love? All of that was nothing— _nothing_ —in comparison to what they now shared.

The bright connection between them, once like a thin, silver thread and more lately like a river, undammed, had become a torrent, a tsunami, a supernova of irresistible Force. He didn’t just feel Luke in his mind; he could also feel Luke in his body, in his organs, in the cells of his organs, in the very molecules comprising them, in the tiny movements of attraction and repulsion which held their constituent elements together. They were mingled, merged, submerged in each other, and Ben couldn’t quite tell where he ended and Luke began anymore.

And, and! When Luke’s power was combined with Ben’s in this manner, Ben could feel _himself_ in ways he could not have previously imagined. He could feel the delicate dance of life and death within him, and he could feel himself suspended in an intricate web of infinite connections, the majestic tapestry of the Force connecting all life throughout in the galaxy. Moreover, and more importantly, he could feel the most minute of blips and bursts and changes to his own natural biorhythms…

…and in meditative communion with Luke, he could actively influence them.

When Ben conceived the third time, when ovum and sperm cell came together in union, Ben and Luke were together, so powerful together, like a conductor leading an orchestra—and the harmonious symphony of life commenced when, and only when, they deigned to lift their baton.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


	19. Signpost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, now I know what happens when I _don't_ have a blow-by-blow outline for a story planned in advance: I get stuck for months. Fortunately, I now have [](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/profile)**[lucymonster](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster)** to thank for the inspiration that got me unstuck. I hope everybody enjoys this subplot! :-D

Ben could hear Lor San Tekka’s voice before he could see him.

“—never been any viable seeds, have there?” Lor was saying.

“No, you’re right. There haven’t. This particular individual is a cutting taken from a tree which once grew on the grounds of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. It is a clone, in other words. And, as best we have been able to tell, it is a female tree, so without any male counterparts to pollinate it—”

“Masters,” Ben greeted respectfully as he turned the corner of the inner courtyard and stepped into the garden. Luke and Lor were there, standing before the training temple’s prized uneti tree. The tree was clearly the subject of their discussion.

“Ah, Ben. Please join us,” Luke said easily as he shifted his body slightly so as to welcome Ben into the circle of their conversation. “You should find our discussion of interest.”

“Young Solo? My, my, look at how you’ve grown! You were but a boy when last I saw you!” Lor exclaimed, the corners of his eyes crinkling with good humor. “I can see how you’ve flourished under Luke’s wise tutelage,” he added with a respectful nod to Luke.

Ha! It was good, Ben reflected, that Lor was not Force-sensitive. Otherwise, he might realize exactly _how much_ Ben had really grown under Luke’s “tutelage”…and while impaled on Luke’s thick, sweet cock…

Luke, who undoubtedly sensed the erotic direction of Ben’s inner monologue, cleared his throat pointedly and resumed his and Lor’s earlier topic of conversation. “Yes, well. Ahem. As I was saying—without any male counterparts to pollinate the tree, the only viable method of further propagation would appear to be with additional cuttings. They seem to be fast-growing when planted; although their maximum size is not large, as you can see, this one is already fully mature. It’s rather unfortunate, actually; I would love to see the uneti bear fruit—”

“No, Luke,” Lor interrupted, shaking his head, “it’s actually _most_ fortuitous. There are references to the uneti trees scattered throughout the ancient liturgical writings I have succeeded in uncovering over the past decade. As you know, they were sacred to the Jedi—and not only because of their strong connection to the Force. The uneti, it is written, is native to the planet upon which the First Temple was built, and it seems that members of the ancient Jedi Order fostered a close symbiotic relationship with the trees. Some sources seem to imply that the tree _is_ the temple, but I suspect that is mostly semantic. In any case, when they undertook to spread the gospel of the Force across the galaxy, they also brought the uneti with them and planted the trees everywhere they established themselves.”

“Fascinating,” Luke said. “I really do appreciate learning the historical basis for the Order’s traditions, Lor, but I must confess that I fail to see—”

“Mutagenesis!” Ben gasped. He looked at Luke, who was still puzzled, and then at Lor, who inclined his head in approval. Luke had been dreaming of finding the First Temple for as long as Ben could remember, but for as long as Ben could remember, it had been just that: a dream. There’d been no serious leads, no guidebooks, no maps. But _now_ …

“Exactly right. Young Solo is a credit to your family, Luke. Mutagenesis. The ancient Jedi carried uneti _cuttings_ with them, not seeds, and every individual tree they planted was a clone of a single, presumably sacred, progenitor tree growing on the planet of the First Temple. The genes of any one individual mutate over the course of its lifetime, with the number of discrete mutations increasing over time. Think! The ancient Jedi didn’t carry a thousand cuttings with them. No, they probably carried only one or two, which they then planted in the first new place they found to settle. Then, when some of the group decided to travel further into the unknown reaches of the galaxy, they took a cutting of that cutting with them, and the next group taking the next step took a cutting of a cutting of a cutting with them. And so forth. _This_ tree”—and now Lor gestured toward the tree which was rooted before them—“is the very last in a long line of trees. Trace that line backwards, that family tree of trees, as it were, back and back and back, and you will find the First Temple where that line begins.”

“Increasing genetic difference from one tree to the next implies increasing age. So the trees are like signposts!” Ben said, intuiting the incredible truth.

Lor nodded. “Exactly right again. The uneti are living remnants of the past wherever they are to be found, Luke—and they are the beacons scattered throughout the galaxy which will light your unerring way back to the First Temple!”

Luke was dumbstruck. In mere minutes, a far-distant dream had become potentially realizable. Perhaps even in his lifetime.

“C’mon! We can do this!” Ben said eagerly. He was absolutely, positively thrilled, thrilled for Luke, thrilled for both of them, and practically bouncing up and down on his heels with ill-contained excitement.

“I-I…I need to think,” Luke said at last.

 

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
